1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a content startup device, a content startup method, and a content startup system that provide various types of information via a terminal device used in a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
A terminal device mounted on a vehicle has many functions. For instance, the terminal device is configured to display on its screen icons allotted to these functions to be provided by corresponding contents programs. If the user selects any one of the icons to specify a function corresponding to the selected icon, a content program corresponding to the specified function is started up to provide desired information. Examples of the content programs include a program for listening to a radio, a program for acquiring weather forecast, program for receiving/transmitting e-mail, and a program for locating a convenience store. Hereafter, these programs are referred to as radio content, weather forecast content, e-mail content, and convenience store retrieval content, respectively. Also, these are simply referred to as content collectively. The information acquired by a content program from a content server may be referred to as content.
JP 2005-84752 A discloses a device that receives content according to a broadcast program information from a server. According to JP 2005-84752 A, various types of information are provided at the terminal device as follows. That is, an appropriate content is selected from the contents included in candidate content list information based on, for instance, conditions on the user side, such as the liking of the user and conditions of the vehicle, and conditions relating to contents, such as category of contents. The order of reproduction of contents is determined to create broadcast program information and the created broadcast program information is transmitted to the content server. This enables the contents according to the broadcast program information to be received from the content server and to be reproduced.